Wireless communication systems are widely deployed to provide various communication services such as voice, video, packet data, messaging, broadcast, etc. These wireless systems may be multiple-access systems capable of supporting multiple users by sharing the available system resources, e.g., time, frequency, power. Examples of such multiple-access systems include Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) systems, Time Division Multiple Access (TDMA) systems, Frequency Division Multiple Access (FDMA) systems, Orthogonal FDMA (OFDMA) systems, and Single-Carrier FDMA (SC-FDMA) systems.
A wireless communication system may include a number of base stations that can support communication for a number of mobile terminals. The system may support operation on multiple carriers. Each carrier may be associated with a particular center frequency and a particular bandwidth. Each carrier may carry pilot and overhead information to support operation on the carrier. Each carrier may also carry data for terminals operating on the carrier. Some transmissions between a terminal and a base station may cause interference to, and may also observe interference from, other transmissions in the communication system. The interference may adversely impact the performance of all affected base stations.
Further, traffic load in the wireless communication system can impede performance of the system. Loads vary dynamically, with users coming to and leaving from the system or moving within the system over short periods of time. Further, traffic demands of users vary in time, e.g., with a user inducing a large load for a data download, but then no or little loading after that. Also, loads within the system are non-uniform. Different users may have different demands and thus induce different loading on the system. For example, one user may have a large data download requiring significant system resources while another user may have a small data demand requiring few system resources.